


cotton-candy blue

by grandson



Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Crying Shiota Nagisa, Gen, Good Boyfriend Akabane Karma, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Gender Dysphoria, M/M, Shiota Nagisa-Centric, although he is oblivious to what nagisa was going through in the fic, nagisa and a small part of the relationship he has with his hair, this is a bit of a character study?? but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 19:11:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18155894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grandson/pseuds/grandson
Summary: Shiota Nagisa is going to turn nineteen soon, and two days before said day, he sits inside his bathroom with a pair of scissors and wonders, ponders.





	cotton-candy blue

For Shiota Nagisa, his hair has always been a large aspect, a huge piece, of his life, of his existence itself. As a young teenager, with bruises, both dark and fading spread across his neck, face— it was something that he loathed, every thread of hair was a thick, heavy chain that weighed him down, shackled him. It seemed as if only his mother held the key necessary to free him, to unburden him. They were slim, they were silver, they went snip, snip, snip. 

It took time, it took seconds, minutes, hours, days— to many to count, to many to remember— for Shiota Nagisa to hold the key. To be able to hold the slim, silver pieces of metal connected at the center, that would grant him freedom from the shackles without the added weight of consequence, looming dangerously over him, grabbing him by the throat and purpling the delicate skin underneath. 

But it’s two days before Shiota Nagisa’s nineteenth birthday, and he sits in a small stool in front of the bathroom mirror. He has water running in the sink, to drown out the noise, the noise of soft chatter outside, the noise of his own heart beating erratically at a pace too hard, too fast to match, the thoughts in his mind are loud and have become deafening static and in between small, slender fingers is a pair of scissors.

They’re a pair of craft scissors, they’re brightly colored, an orangey-yellow color and they’re a bit worn, no longer sharp to the touch. He used to use these in middle school. In his other hand, the left, he has his own hair twisting and tugging between his fingers as he hovers the open scissors in between them. He’s shaking, he’s shaking terribly and hot, unshed tears threaten to escape the corners of his eyes.

It’s just hair. He reminds himself firmly, attempting to ground himself, but even the voice in his head seems uncertain, fearful. _It’s hair. It’s just hair. Just hair._ The fingers in between the loops of the scissors tense, making the blades reach closer together, before loosening, and the process continues for several tense minutes that seem to last for countless hours. _Why are you so afraid?_ He asks himself, as the tears release themselves, trailing down the curves of his cheeks, his chin and onto his bare legs. 

The shaking continues, it worsens, his hand tilts and the scissors dip. The continuous stream of rushing water is far too loud, his legs are far too cold, the tears are too hot, there’s a small knock on the door, it sounds like someone’s trying to break it down, it’s too much, too much to handle, too much to bear and _he can’t stand it—_

There’s a small ding that comes from his phone. 

The noises clear, the static crackles and lowers, his hand reaches for the sink handle and the water has been shut off, the person across the door has left with a soft murmur, and all that’s left are his soft sniffles, shallow breathing. His grip on the scissors lax, he places them on the sink with a small clatter, and nimble fingers reach for said phone. 

It’s a small thing, really. The newer, slimmer, larger models simply don’t fit into his hand, unless he grasps it with both. The cover is worn, it’s a solid blue. A light blue, and it has a few scribbles on it and he has a phone charm attached to it, a cartoonish devil, complete with the bright, curved red horns and black trident, and a large smirk, with bared teeth, and is it really such a surprise that the one to gift it to him was—

 _ **karma(s a bitch):**_ _what do you want for your birthday_

A soft, soft gasp leaves his lips, the tension ebbs away, far, far away. The relief works its way into his skin, deep into his bones. Those same, small, slender fingers cradle the clunky phone as if it’s a precious, precious gem. His back is hunched over, over the phone. The same cotton-candy blue hair falls over his shoulders in graceful waves, almost as if it was water. A small laugh manages to leave him as he presses his forearms against the sink. 

_**karma(s a bitch):**_ _a good dicking_

_**karma(s a bitch):**_ _a cake pop_

_**karma(s a bitch):**_ _terasaka’s dead body wrapped up in tracing paper_

_**nagi:**_ _why tracing paper_

 _ **karma(s a bitch):**_ _tracing paper is cool_

_**nagi:**_ _nice_

 _ **karma(s a bitch):**_ _anyway_

_**karma(s a bitch):**_ _u okay_

_**nagi:**_ _yeah_

_**nagi:**_ _im okay_

It’s just hair. He reminded himself, yet, once again. Nothing can have power over you unless you grant it to the power to, unless you let it. He straightens his back, lets his hands drop to his lap, lets his cotton-candy blue hair, now long enough to reach his waist, fall over his shoulders and back. He wets his fingers with droplets in the sink and rubs them over the tear marks on his cheeks, another sniffle leaves him, his mother knocks again. Someone who was once his captor, the one who held the keys high in the air, now lets them down where he can reach— but the chains don’t weigh him down to the ground, they feel weightless, in fact, he feels as though he can soar.

Maybe another day, he thinks. But not today, he thinks again. 

“Nagisa, sweetheart, are you alright?” Her voice is no longer coated thickly with sugar, no longer holds the promise of threat, its genuine. It’s sweet.

He looks at himself, really looks at himself. Shiota Nagisa is his name, and right now, he’s wearing a light blue hoodie with sleeves that fall over the tips of his fingers, he’s got cotton-candy blue hair that reaches just past his waist, he’s got big blue eyes to match. And through the small window in the bathroom, he looks at the moon, split into a crescent, swallows, and smiles.

“Yeah,” he replies softly, gently, beginning to rise, “I’m okay.” And he knocks the scissors off the sink and into the little bin below, he believes himself. He’s Shiota Nagisa, and he’s a little blue, but he’ll be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i haven’t written in almost a year now, and for some reason, even though i have long since faded and burned out of the assclass fandom, this just came to me, and i think i wanna make it into a series of nagisa exploring himself. i hope you enjoyed it to some degree, and can you tell me any more tags i should add??


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